White Fragility | Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo →
“Robin DiAngelo is an academic, lecturer, and author and has been a consultant and trainer on racial and social justice issues for more than twenty years. She formerly served as a tenured professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University.”
“The value in White Fragility lies in its methodical, irrefutable exposure of racism in thought and action, and its call for humility and vigilance.”
—The New Yorker
DiAngelo’s book “White Fragility " focuses on white people’s attempts to analyze and develop what she sees as a universality of white people’s predictable patterns of viewing and discussing racism. Her conclusions apply to all white people, not just those openly racist.
“She argues that our largely segregated society is set up to insulate whites from racial discomfort so that they fall to pieces at the first application of stress—for instance, when someone suggests that “flesh-toned” may not be an appropriate name for a beige crayon.”
She concludes that white society has expectations that they are entitled to peace and deference, which leads them to respond defensively to “racial triggers” with anger, fear, guilt, “and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation.”
The book opens eyes and lets. Whites see themselves differently and seem to be an analysis of only whiteness. (Of course, the subtitle tells us that) Some have found fault in the book’s approach, but that seems to miss the point. White Fragility is the point. Whites, in general, have not confronted the issues this author brings up.
Purposeful Retirement by Hyrum Smith: A Review →
Hyrum W. Smith, the author of Purposeful Retirement, is an award-winning author, distinguished speaker, and successful businessman. He is one of the original creators of the famous Franklin Day Planner, the former Chairman, and CEO of Franklin Covey Co., and the recognized “Father of Time Management.”
The Author’s credentials were the reason I chose to read this book. It was not a surprise to see the idea of utilizing and measuring your time to be part of the approach he presented. He mixed that approach with various ways to make the time value, suggesting different service approaches. It was a positive approach and will likely help those feeling bad about their lost jobs and routine.
Smith challenges society’s view of retirement and offers ways to shift your mindset, embrace the transition and live a life entirely in retirement.
No More Vietnams by Richard Nixon (The Blame Game Begins) →
Throughout our lives, it is essential to reframe our view of mistakes. We must learn to make the most of them and reshape our goals and expectations. Reading “No More Vietnams” is not an effort to learn from mistakes - just a blame game.
In 1991 the Washington Post published an article by E.J. Dione Jr. titled Kicking The Vietnam Syndrome, saying, “Wars transform nations, but the response to wars can transform them even more.”
Richard Nixon’s book, “No More Vietnams,” was not a response to the war but was instead just his finger-pointing blame on everyone who he felt didn’t support him in his book that was “actually Nixon’s diatribe against the antiwar movement, academics, the media, and everyone else he thinks lost Vietnam.” He claimed that “Vietnam was a morally correct war for the United States since we were trying to save a country from communist tyranny.”
Nixon analyzes America’s military involvement in Southeast Asia, including his role as commander-in-chief from 1969 to 1974, and concludes that it was "winnable" had the U.S. pursued the proper military strategy, at least in the period before his presidency. He implies some regret that his administration didn’t see a victory but claims that he didn’t have the support of the public to achieve that and claimed it would have undercut his efforts to open relations with China and the Soviet Union.
The loss of this war resulted in the Vietnam Syndrome, which was the attitude that the United States developed about going to war in distant places where they couldn’t win and didn’t end until the Iraq war.
Billy Summers by Stephen King →
Rather than retiring, as he had been considering, Billy Summers takes one last job. It is too hard to resist, with a half-million-dollar advance and another million and a half on completion. First, he has to be sure the guy he is supposed to kill is the wrong person, which has always been required in his work as a hitman.
The plot and story are meticulously crafted, as we would anticipate. The mob boss who hires Billy Summers asks him to immerse himself in the community before the hit, assuming the role of a writer. This unexpected twist adds a layer of excitement to the narrative, as Billy's writing and his approach to it become a story within the story.
One of the intriguing plot twists is the absence of any supernatural influence in the story. However, about halfway through the book, we encounter some references to paranormal activity within a picture on a wall. Despite this unexpected turn, it does not significantly impact the larger storyline. It's almost like an advertisement for his book, “The Shinning,” as the cabin where the haunted picture hangs is across the valley from where the Overlook hotel had burned, and Billy’s friend tells him “bad stuff happened.”
The crime novel is an assigned thriller with several stories within the story and doesn’t disappoint.
Revival, by Stephen King →
A new minister comes to town, and almost everyone in the tiny Maine town comes to love the new minister, his beautiful wife, and his young son.
Mrs. Jacobs, the minister’s wife, and her child die in a terrible auto accident. The young minister loses faith and turns against God and religion in his sermons leading to the town banishing him from the city.
The former minister spends years as a sideshow con man but then has a new plan and pretends to regain his belief in God and becomes a miracle-working faith healer. Electricity is part of his approach to healing, fueled by his lifelong experiments with electricity.
A former resident, Jamie, of the town he came to before the accident, has grown up and become a heroin addict. Jamie seeks out Jacobs' healing electrical treatment cure to overcome his addiction. Still, after being treated, Jamie experiences strange side effects, including sleepwalking and stabbing himself in the arm with sharp objects. Jamie starts to see Jacob as a fraud and looks into the many others that Jacobs has healed. As it turns out, many of them have experienced similar side effects; some have killed themselves and others.
Jacobs contacts Jamie to tell him that his childhood sweetheart, Astrid, has developed terminal cancer, and he agrees to heal her, but only if Jamie becomes his assistant. Jamie agrees, and Astrid is cured.
Jamie continues experimenting with his particular cure, which he calls "secret electricity.” He plans to heal people using a surge of energy from a lightning rod going into a terminally ill woman named Mary Fay. The healing works, but not in the way Jacobs intends.
The revived Mary Fay becomes a doorway to the afterlife. When things get ugly, they find a dimension where dead humans are enslaved for eternity by insane beings. The plot thickens with plenty of horrors to come.
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Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing, by Robert A Caro →
“Caro recalls the moments at which he came to understand that he wanted to write not just about the men who wielded power but about the people and the politics that were shaped by that power. And he talks about the importance to him of the writing itself, of how he tries to infuse it with a sense of place and mood to bring characters and situations to life on the page. Taken together, these reminiscences–some previously published, some written expressly for this book–bring into focus the passion, the wry self-deprecation, and the integrity with which this brilliant historian has always approached his work.”
From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Power Broker” and “The Years of Lyndon Johnson”: an unprecedented gathering of vivid, candid, deeply revealing recollections about his experiences researching and writing his acclaimed books.
This book should be a must for non fiction writers in order to learn the value of research and what the obsession with facts can mean to a talented writer and master researcher.
Working | Robert Caro For the first time in book form, Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life ... In Working, he shares tips on researching, interviewing, and writing...
Don't Trust Her, by Elizabeth Boles →
Paige invited her friends, Court, Faith, and Blanche, for a girls' getaway at her mountain cabin. After they arrive, an ice storm hits, and they are stranded with no phone or internet.
They share secrets about their lives and some shared events from High School, and then we learn that three of them have been blackmailed by someone. The plot seems predictable, but then it twists, and we don’t know what to expect. One of them turns up dead. It looks like it may be suicide, but it is questionable. The other three try to leave but end up wrecking the car. They are stuck with each other until the ice melts. However, one of them may be a murderer.
Was the death a murder? Will the other three make it out alive, and will one confess to the murder if they do?
The title suggests “Don’t Trust Her.” The question is, who is “the her”?
Finders Keepers by Stephen King Review ( # 2 in the Bill Hodges Trilogy) →
Tom Saubers goes to the job fair where the book, “Mr. Mercedes”, begins. Tom becomes one of those lined up for work, only to be maimed by the attacking Mercedes and left unable to earn a living. So it is a fantastic coincidence that the Sauberses live in the house where Morris lived right after the 1978 robbery and that the 13-year-old Pete Saubers finds a trunk full of literature and loot that Morris buried nearby.
John Rothstein is an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold but hasn’t published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash and the real treasure, notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel.
Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure. Pete’s father, Tom Sauber, had gone to the job fair where “Mr. Mercedes” begins. Tom had lined up waiting for work opportunities only to be maimed by the attacking car and left unable to earn a living. So it is a fantastic coincidence that the Sauberses live in the house where Morris lived right after the 1978 robbery and that the young Pete Saubers finds a trunk full of literature and loot that Morris buried nearby.
Finders Keepers is an investigative company headed by Bill Hodges. He retired from the police force right after the Mr. Mercedes incident and was helped by Holly Gibney and Jerome Robinson. They are tasked with rescuing Pete Saubers from the deranged and vengeful Morris when he’s released from prison.
Bill Hodges Trilogy
Mr. Mercedes #1
End Of Watch #3
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Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (The Bill Hodges Trilogy Book 1) →
The case goes unsolved, and ex-cop Bill Hodges is out of hope when he gets a letter from a man who loved the feel of death under Mercedes’s wheels…
Several months later, an ex-cop named bill Hodges, still haunted by the unsolved crime, contemplates suicide. When he gets a crazed letter from someone claiming credit for the murders, Hodges is shaken and returns from his retirement, believing another l attack w l come and intends to prevent it.
Brady Hartsfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again but plans that next time he’s going big, with an attack that would take down thousands.
From the book’s front flap, we learn: “Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.”
Note from Spring 2021: This trilogy was made into a TV series. Was the series as good as the books? The series gave some deeper insight into the characters and was well done. The books were a little better, of course.
Bill Hodges Trilogy
Finders Keepers #2
End Of Watch #3
Never Far Away by Michael Koryta
She becomes a guide in the Allagash Wilderness in northern Maine. Ten years later, Doug dies in a car accident. Daughter Hailey, now 13, calls Nina’s pager, believing it’s the way to contact her aunt, Leah Trenton.
Leah comes for the children and takes them, and they start a new life in Maine. Word of Doug’s death reaches Corson Lowery, the man who thought he had paid to have her killed. He learns the children have been picked up and sends two new assassins to find her.
The plot and characters quickly pull us in and the characters. This is the first time I have read this author, and his skill at developing the story impressed me the most.
5 Stars
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie →
How to Win Friends and Influence People is a book by Dale Carnegie, published in 1936. Over 30 million copies have been sold worldwide. The text should be a “must-read” for those trying to learn how to network. It is classified as a self-help book, but in addition to that, it is a book about the fundamentals of handling people.
Twelve Things This Book Will Do For You
Get you out of a mental rut, and give you new thoughts, visions, and ambitions.
Enable you to make friends quickly and easily.
Increase your popularity.
Help you to win people to your way of thinking.
Increase your influence, prestige, and ability to get things done.
Enable you to win new clients and new customers.
Increase your earning power.
Make you a better salesman, a better executive.
Help you to handle complaints, avoid arguments, and keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant.
Make you a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist.
Make the principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts.
Help you to arouse enthusiasm among your associates.
